


the twist of your lips when you're being made a fool of

by JaguarCello



Series: dash against darkness [2]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: M/M, Pyromania, Soft Grunge, stupid murderers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-23
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-09 07:55:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/771848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaguarCello/pseuds/JaguarCello
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jehan curls his toes around the edge of the rooftop, but Montparnasse is the one falling</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Montparnasse had first seen Jehan standing on the roof of the car-park, toes curled around the edge, a pair of battered floral docs slouched next to the fire escape, and he’d seen enough people who were about to jump – living in the underbelly of the criminal world, there were many who couldn’t stomach it – to know that this wasn’t it. There was a look of bliss on his face, a look that Montparnasse had only seen achieved through chemical interference, and the sleeves of his oversized jumper billowed in the wind, and his hair – long enough to touch the backs of his shoulder-blades, he imagined – streamed behind him.

 He can hear the city below him – faint music from the restaurants, cars, dogs, the hum of bicycles and somewhere there’s a bird cooing in a tree. (Somewhere in his memory a pair of hands are pointing at pictures in a book, and the seven-year-old him whispers “dove”, and then the memory is stained with blood).

 “Are you high?” he asked, approaching cautiously, flicking his lighter between his fingers; the boy frowned, and opened one eye, and then turned his head. The freckles on his face lit up with the evening sunset, and his eyes looked like they might be green, out of the half-dusk.

 “No,” he said simply, and tilted his head back further, exposing the tendons of his neck. “You know when you can almost feel your cells dividing? The trees growing, and ever life and death in the world flows through you?” and he tugged the lighter out of Montparnasse’s hands.

 He’d cut the throats of men for less, and yet he stared, dumbfounded, at this strange person.

 “I like the dusk,” the boy went on, lighting a blue Sobranie Cocktail, and blowing a stream of smoke into the wind. “Things change – colours change, and the cones and rods in our eyes adapt, and the city at once slows down and speeds up – “

 “You _are_ high,” Montparnasse insisted, but pulled his own Sobranies (black, obviously – he was nothing if not a caricature) from his own pocket, and grabbed his lighter back, and it was warm from the boy’s hand. “You look like Peter Pan,” he added, smirking, at the way the huge jumper flowed behind him, as if he were about to fly – and the way the light bought out gold and amber in his hair, he wouldn’t be surprised if he were some sort of nymph.

 The boy snorted, in a way that on anyone else would be scorning, but was just interesting, and Montparnasse hadn’t found much interesting in nineteen years of blood and drugs and midnight burials (bury a body beneath a dead dog, he’d once been told, and that way it is a false positive), and he cast an eye over Montparnasse’s clothes. “Did you know,” and the corners of his perfect mouth were smirking, “that that cross – “ and he gestured at the inverted cross on Montparnasse’s shirt – “is a really religious thing? It’s called the Petrine Cross, and it’s a sign of humility and unworthiness.” His eyes moved down Montparnasse’s body, and (in a way that he hadn’t felt since he was old enough to throw a knife or a punch) he felt _spliced_ , an insect stuck on a card, being scrutinised under a magnifying glass.

 “And,” the boy went on, “I’m guessing that for someone who’s cut artful holes in said top to display an admittedly perfect physique – but then I’m a poet, don’t take it personally – humility isn’t really your thing?” and he turned from the edge, and there was a dragon on his jumper, and Montparnasse – first down an alley, last over the fence behind the power station to run from the police – considered taking a  step back.

 “I’m not arrogant – “ he started, but he could tell that this boy with fucking _flowers_ in his hair and painted toenails shining brightly against the concrete rooftop could destroy him in every way, so he shuts up, and watched the way the boy picked his way across the cigarette butts and bottle-tops on the floor, and pulled his boots on.

 “Why are you here? Not exactly a great place,” the boy asked,  and he flicked at his cigarette, sprinkling ash over the edge of the roof. Montparnasse wondered if it hits anyone, or if – like him – it freefalls above a chasm, and he shruged. “My tenant, courier, call her what you will, hasn’t paid the rent for a while, and then turned up earlier with two smaller tenants. They’d be good for running things, but I’d doubt she’d let me; she’s got claws like a cat, that girl - you” and he rubbed at his face, where there was a faint red scar across his eyebrow, to avoid looking at the way the boy’s collarbones moved when he breathed deeply.

 “Oh, I just wanted to be up somewhere. The noise of the city, the complications of friends being in love with other friends – so today, Enjolras looked at Grantaire and Grantaire cried -  and sudden polyamorous relationships sprouting up, and of course I’m banned from smoking in our apartment block – “ and he dragged one last time on the cigarette before – with a flick of his fingers that made Montparnasse’s thoughts run rampant – sending it spinning over the edge of the rooftop.

 “I’m Jehan,” he added. “And I love your tattoos,” and he motioned to the ink swirled across his collarbones, and leaned in close to breathe - smoky sweet-flavoured – “I want to write poetry about the twist of your lips when you’re being made a fool of”, and then he was gone, skipping over to the fire-escape and twirling, jumper flying behind him, down the stairs that spiralled down the side of the building.

 Montparnasse took his spent cigarette from his mouth slowly, pensively, and wondered about the bruise those long fingers would leave, and dropped the butt over the edge, hoping it might pass Jehan – for he may have been a murderer, but murderers could be romantic.

 That was what he told himself later that night, guiltily filling his mind with images of those fingers and that mouth, biting down hard on his own arm so that Éponine – in the next room – wouldn’t hear him gasp Jehan’s name like a prayer.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That night, Jehan dreamed of murderers with pretty smiles and roses as red as blood, murderers sending flowers of condolence to the families of their victims, murderers who kissed as if they could breathe life back into anyone, just with their desperate lips.

Jehan had been riding around and around on the Underground that day, until the ticket inspectors simply rolled their eyes as soon as they caught sight of his panda jumper and battered knapsack and he’d heard fifteen different languages spoken (and inwardly cursed himself that he could not yet speak Farsi) and he had read every poem that had been pasted next to the maps and he had seen every station there was to see, passing through long-abandoned ones and stations where people had huddled from foreign bombs, sixty years previously; stations above which monarchs had been executed, Parliaments defeated, plots formed and thwarted, children born and old men buried. He sat hunched over his bag, and his hair had been intricately braided by Cosette that morning. 

 (She had, of course, told him all about the girl with the lace and leather and tattoos across her ribcage, and he had told her about the boy with the wicked smile and cheekbones like polished glass.)

 It was a warm day up at ground level, and just as his freckles had started to give way to sunburn he had bolted for the stairs, and he had buried his reddening nose in a book, but had given that up for drawing maps across his hands.

 “You’ve got the entire world at your fingertips,” and he looked up to see the beautiful boy, denim jacket slung across his arm, and his dark hair a mess. He smelled like chrysanthemums and ashes, and Jehan smiled at him, heart thumping so loudly he’d have worried the boy could hear it, were it not for the headphones jammed into his ears.

 “High again?” the boy asked, pulling the buds from his ears, and when Jehan shrugged he frowned, eyebrows swooping low; Jehan was reminded of a bird of prey eyeing his prey, and decided he wouldn’t mind being caught for once. “It’s Montparnasse,” the boy added, and held out a pale hand to shake. Jehan took it, and the boy’s fingers were cool and delicate under his.

 “Well, Montparnasse, I’m dying for a cigarette and a light breeze. Do you want to go and find an empty building to torch? I know a good one two minutes away,” and the boy blinked once, slowly. “I can tell you’re – “ and he leaned in close to the boy’s neck to whisper “illicit, yourself. And I like fire, and you have a pretty lighter,” and Montparnasse smirked at him.

 “Don’t take this the wrong way, Jehan, but you don’t seem the type to go round burning shit for fun – more the type for huddling in your massive jumpers and waxing lyrical about constellations, or picking flowers and putting them in your hair – “

 Jehan’s eyes narrowed. “I do that as well. Being romantic and Romantic aren’t mutually exclusive, you know. I can like flowers and be melodramatic at the same time,” and he smiled so sweetly that dimples appeared in his cheeks. “And anyway, considering your shoddy knowledge of the symbolism behind the clothes you wear, can I really trust your opinion?”

 Montparnasse laughed, showing sharp teeth, wolf-like, and the flash of a tongue piercing. “Come on then,” and he leaned back in equally close to Jehan’s shoulder. “I do have a pretty lighter,” and he grabbed Jehan’s arm and they leaped for the doors a split second before they closed; the guard shouted, but Jehan vaulted over the barrier and Montparnasse followed. Outside the station, they slumped against the wall, gasping for breath. “Smoker’s lungs,” Montparnasse gasped at the concerned look of an old lady, and Jehan hailed a taxi – “I thought you said it was two minutes?” “I lied,” – and by the time Montparnasse’s iPod had died, they had pulled up outside a gate.

 “Where are we?” Montparnasse asked, lighting up a cigarette and scuffing his boots in the dried grass.

“Surrey,” Jehan told him, and laughed at the incredulous look on his face. “Come on,” but before half-skipping up what was once a drive, he lit an pink Cocktail off Montparnasse’s cigarette; for a second, they shared a breath.

The building was listing badly, surrounded by “Keep out – danger” signs and a fence, but Jehan moved a loose panel aside and slipped through. “It used to be an old mansion,” he told Montparnasse, and laughed scornfully. “Well, it used to be mine,” and Montparnasse twisted to look at him; he shrugged, and qualified, “It belonged to my parents, and then they died in the master bedroom from a gas leak. And I didn’t want it, and I couldn’t sell it because the gas leak affected the insurance or something. Ask Marius or Courfeyrac,” and then he remembered that Montparnasse didn’t know them. “Anyway. I don’t want it and it’s just gathering dust, and it’s only got bad memories attached to it now. I hated them. We can look around first,” and Montparnasse followed him into the house.

“The gas is all gone now, so we can just burn it down normally,” Jehan said, smiling at him and dragging the sleeves of his jumper down over his wrists, before blowing a smoke ring up towards the vaulted ceiling of the hall. “They used to hate me smoking,” and he laughed. Montparnasse laughed with him, and poked the next door open with his foot.

 “The study,” confirmed Jehan, and when they peered around the door they saw that the bones of an old writing desk had shattered under the weight of an old typewriter; other than that, the room was empty. “I’m going to – I’m going to hang onto this,” Jehan muttered, grabbing it from the mess of papers that it was nesting in, and he tucked it into his rucksack. They moved on, dancing round rotten floorboards and the strange feeling of the space between them, and in the kitchen, Jehan grabbed a mug. “You can take anything,” he told Montparnasse, and as they went through the house, they both amassed armfuls of treasure, shoving it into plastic bags and canvas sacks from the kitchen.

 In the bedroom where his parents died, Jehan knelt in front of the skeleton of the bed-frame, and grasped at a rosary from the floor; Montparnasse wandered on, to the bathroom, and from there (having tried the squeaking taps on the bath, to no avail, and so contented himself with sending the butt of the cigarette spinning down the gaping plughole) he moved to the next room, where Jehan caught up with him, carrying two canisters of what smelt like petrol, and Montparnasse grinned his wolf-smirk.

 “This was my room,” Jehan confided, and Montparnasse would never have guessed; it looked like a show-room in a booklet for accountants. The walls were magnolia and plain, and the tattered remains of the duvet were navy blue. “They – my parents didn’t like the way I was. I was a disappointment to them,” and as he spoke, a shaft of sunlight framed his shadow in the doorway. The dust motes in the air – rainbow colours, shifting and changing ever second – were more Jehan than this boring room could ever be, and when Montparnasse said as much, Jehan smiled at him.

 “When I told them what I wanted to do at uni, and where I wanted to go, all they said was that it wasn’t a proper degree, and I’d never make it as a writer, anyway, and that I should just be an accountant like my dad. That’s where all this – “ and he gestured towards the rest of the house, and then reached out for the first canister of petrol – “comes from; he sold his soul to the banks and frowned every time I wasn’t dressed like a miniature version of him. I guess I sort of took it to the other extreme,” and Montparnasse licked his lips unthinkingly as he watched Jehan’s ink-covered hands unscrew the lid, and when the first lick of flames appeared on the bed it almost surprised him.

 “I didn’t give you my lighter,” but he took it off Jehan and flicked it at the trail of petrol leading across the hall, and Jehan laughed, and hurled the almost-empty canister across his parents’ room; it went up at once.

 “I picked your pocket,” Jehan told him, as he splashed petrol all over the curtains halfway up the stairs, and then tossed a match over his shoulder with undisguised glee. Montparnasse only snorted in reply, and pulled his flick-knife from his pocket to carve his name above the lintel of the dining room as they blazed with the flames through the house.

 The mugs in the kitchen started to crack with the heat, and then began to ricochet across the room, smashing onto the floor in shards that they picked their way gingerly across, to light up the lounge; the sofas burned well, and Montparnasse – peering into the ravage ruins of one – saw that it was stuffed with money. He turned to Jehan, who seized handfuls of the notes and tossed them into the air, where they floated high up to the ceiling-roses before sinking into the flames again.

 “Destruction is another form of creation,” Jehan laughed, and his eyes were alive with a fervour that matched the glee Montparnasse had first seen above the city.

 “You’re high again, aren’t you?” Montparnasse asked him, taking armfuls of the money and stuffing them into his bag. “Or, I mean, are you just a complete pyromaniac?” and Jehan smiled at him.

 “I write my first poem about a fire,” he mused, watching the inferno gather pace, and then – as half the banister fell with a crash - he skipped to the door. “My dad put it in the bin, and he wouldn’t let me burn it. So I used to burn things, just to annoy them.” He looked back at Montparnasse, and, kicking the door open, he escaped into the drive.

 “We’d better go,” and he threw one last lit match at the front door, before turning on his (flowery) heel and calmly lighting up another cigarette. Montparnasse laughed wildly, before tearing after him; the flames were starting to lick at his feet by now, the ancient carpets turning into ash, and they ran to the gates to watch from a distance. “I used to feel bad about, you know, damaging the environment. And the poor people that could live there. But then, it was declared unfit for human habitation, and I plant a tree every day.” He shrugged, watching the plumes of smoke that curled into the sky.

 “Anyway,” he added, “I got tired of waiting. Do you ever think that we spend too much time waiting? To be older, to be richer, to be cleverer or to get the things we want, rather than just concentrating on the now? I got tired of waiting for this old place to fall down.” He peered closer at Montparnasse. “I didn’t freak you out, did I? Usually I don’t talk this much, but you know those trees in the Australian outback?”

 Montparnasse nodded cautiously. “It takes more than a little arson to freak me out, little bird – “

 Jehan scowled at him. “Those trees in the outback can only grow when there’s a fire; the cones split open and the trees can carry on there. It’s like that. Fire wakes me up, enlivens me, amplifies every aspect of my personality,” and he turned the corner to an outbuilding, where a battered Mini was sat. “We’ll drive back,” he told Montparnasse, and opened the windows wide enough that his hair streamed behind him, like that rooftop.

 “You have ash in your hair,” Montparnasse told him once they’d paid a small fortune to park, flicking at the braid with nervous fingers. (He was never nervous, he told himself stubbornly, but his fingers still shook). Jehan blinked, eyelashes sweeping his cheeks, and he leaned forwards to press a fierce kiss to Montparnasse’s lips.

“You taste like destruction,” he whispered, drawing back to look at him, and Montparnasse’s eyebrows swooped low again until he leaned forwards and kissed him again.

“Destruction is a form of creation,” Montparnasse reminded him, and Jehan kissed him hungrily, as if there were fire at his heels or a flood at his back, and he was salvation. 

 That night, Jehan dreamed of murderers with pretty smiles and roses as red as blood, murderers sending flowers of condolence to the families of their victims, murderers who kissed as if they could breathe life back into anyone, just with their desperate lips. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chrysanthemums are, in the language of flowers in some countries, allied with death


End file.
